Troubling Signs that Your Home isn’t Just Settling

When home inspectors speak of settling, they’re not referring to a person’s hasty choice; whether its in regards to a mate or a dinner entree. They’re referring to a home’s “getting comfortable” so to speak.  Anyone who has ever lived in a home constructed of any type of building material is familiar with the concept of settling. Gravity is constantly trying to pull your home’s building elements ever closer to its foundation, causing it to settle over many years. Those creaks, moans, groans and pops are all just indicative sounds of your home becoming one with its surroundings. This movement often causes benign cracks in the foundation, floors and walls in most homes, regardless of their age. But how does one know which cracks are normal and which ones point to bigger and much more worrisome foundation problems? Where all cracks look as if they are a problem, a home inspection in Centennial, will bring to light the difference between those meaningless cracks and those that indicate real problems.

Signs of possibly serious foundation issues include:

• Wall rotation
• Bowing of walls
• Doors and windows that won’t open or close properly
• Separation of doors and windows
• Forming of spaces between walls and ceilings or floors
• Walls separating from house
• Cracks in walls and brick
• Uneven or sloping floors

Where the presence of one issue is not an automatic sign of foundation problems, having a home inspector analyze the indications of structural problems is always recommended. If your are concerned that  your home, or a home that you may purchase, is showing signs of serious issues, call us at Safe Investment Home Inspections. We can help separate those settling issues from the real problems.